Beware the Ides of March! After all, when they’re upon us it means there’s only 15 more days to get your stuff together and submit to these contests. If only there were 23 contests here instead of 15… you know, one for each of Caesar’s stab wounds.

If your New Year’s resolution was to write more (and I’m sure, like me, you’ve stuck with your resolutions with steadfast determination) it may be just about time to send some of that new material out into the world.

Another month, another list of short story contests for you to try your hand at. Even though it’s not exactly a short story contest, no November list would be complete without a mention of NaNoWriMo (That’s National Novel Writing Month for the uninitiated) — so there’s your obligatory mention.

Anyway, even if you’re doing NanoWriMo, these contests could be well worth your time if you’ve got a few shorter pieces prepared. Good luck everyone!

Well, in the last couple of weeks, while working on my stories for these prompts, I’ve found myself turning more frequently to a new source of inspiration: Wikipedia. Something about the process of learning something new – call it flash research – gets my creativity going and I end up really enjoying the pieces that come out of it.

Are You Up For (Another) Challenge?

So I’d like to propose an idea to you, my readers and fellow writers: how about a new weekly writing challenge where we take the day’s featured Wikipedia article and write a short story off of it?

These sad clowns will be even sadder if you’re not into this idea… just Say Say Saying

I’m going to start doing it anyway, based on whatever article is featured each Wednesday. Today it’s an article on “Say Say Say”– a song written and performed by Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson.

There will only be a few rules. First, the stories should be 500 words or fewer. Second, they should be done by the following Wednesday. And third – there is no third!

So what do you think? Will you join me? Do you even have time in your schedule to fit in another writing prompt? It might be slow to build at first, but I think a weekly prompt that involves a little bit of research could be useful (and knowing some of the Fictioneers and FSF-ers, I’m already really interested to see what you might do with this week’s prompt).

It’s week three (for me at least) of the Trifecta Writing Challenge, and this week the prompt is uneasy. The idea for this came to me pretty easily though, with a little help from Wikipedia (more on that here ). Give it a read, leave your comments and criticism below, and then think about jumping into the fray for next week’s prompt!

The Battle of Bicocca

Albert had wept as he crossed the field — in full view of his men, he had wept like a child — but it didn’t matter, for all his men were dead. Now the blood clung to his hands and face and ran down his chest in sticky gobs.

Alone in his tent he lit a long match, and then a candle, and then a dark-leafed cigar. He rolled it above the flame, drawing carefully to perfect the burn, and still he wept.

“How will I tell them?” he whispered.

He had lost men before – not these numbers, perhaps, not thousands – but he had lost them. He had seen men with pikes through their necks, men trampled by horses, men destroyed by the fierce blast of the arquebus, but…but that smile, that uneasy smile, was what unraveled him now – that terror worse by far than all the death and misery he’d ever witnessed.

“Trust me,” he said to himself, remembering. “Trust me.”

And Michel had trusted him, not as his commander, but as his brother – and so deeply that all those years, all those years since they had been young together, had flashed with hope in that one smile, shaded though it was by doubt.

Now, in the darkness of his tent, Albert wrote his letters home – one announcing his brother’s death, and one that he had not yet decided to send.